Accompanied by Your God

Ezekiel's vision, from the Zurich Bible

If you’ve ever read (or tried to read) the book of Ezekiel, then you know that chapter 1 is wild.

There are these four creatures, each with four wings, four faces, and hooves like a calf, flashing around like bolts of lightning (1:5-14).

Beside the creatures are wheels—“something like a wheel within a wheel”—and the rims of the wheels are covered in eyes. Anywhere the creatures go, the wheels go with them. (1:15-21)

Above all that is “something like a dome,” (1:22) with “something like a throne” on top (he’s not really sure how to describe it all), and on the throne-thing is “something that seemed like a human form” (1:26)—the Lord.

He’s having a vision of God’s throne. It’s sort of a chariot. The creatures—cherubim, we find out later in the book—pull the chariot, and it rolls along on those watchful wheels. The prophet also points out that these wheels can move in any direction (1:17).

God’s throne has wheels. It’s mobile. What’s that all about?

These weird angels and their rolling royal throne show up again in chapters 10 and 11. God’s glory, God’s presence, has been dwelling in Jerusalem (8:4). It’s been that way since King Solomon first dedicated the Temple back in 1 Kings. But, as Jerusalem’s destruction looms, Ezekiel witnesses the glory of the Lord moving away from the Temple (10:18-19) and out of the city (11:22-23).

God left. The Lord’s throne is mobile, and it just rolled right out of town.

So, what, when the going gets tough, the Lord gets going? Is that what the wheels are for? So, when God can’t stand the heat, God can get out of the kitchen?

Actually, it’s just the opposite.

The Babylonians are going to conquer Judah, destroy Jerusalem, and carry off countless citizens into exile in Babylon. (Remember Daniel and his friends living in Babylon?) God’s people are about to have their lives shattered. They’re going to be separated from home, from family and friends, and from God, who lives back in Jerusalem.

Unless… unless God isn’t stuck in Jerusalem.

What if… what if God’s throne had wheels? What if God’s presence was mobile?

When the glory of God departs Jerusalem in Ezekiel 11, it says “the glory of the Lord ascended from the middle of the city, and stopped on the mountain east of the city.” (11:23)

The wheels could move in any direction, but the Lord’s headed east. Why?

That’s the direction of Babylon. When the people are taken from their homes and carted off east, their Lord will already be there waiting for them. They aren’t separated. They aren’t abandoned. They are accompanied by their God.

When your life is shattered, you are never abandoned or separated from the Lord. You are accompanied by your God. When the going gets tough, God doesn’t get going—God goes with you. If things are falling apart, and you’re looking around wondering, ‘Did God leave?’, maybe God’s just already gone on to the place ahead that you’re so afraid of, and is waiting to be with you there.

That wild vision in Ezekiel chapter 1, do you know where Ezekiel saw it? Chapter 1, verse 1: “as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens opened, and I saw visions of God.”

The river Chebar is in Babylon.

And so was God.

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